The much-promoted scientific consensus on human-induced global warming
is troubling.

At one point the scientific consensus was that the earth is flat and
that the sun revolves around it. Only in the 1960s did scientists begin
to accept the theory of plate tectonics, something that is
well-established today.

Science is supposed to be where opposing ideas collide and duke it out
with evidence. Much of the global warming research relies on computer
models and extrapolation.

Extrapolation tells us that when a child grows six inches between ages
3 and 6 that he or she will be 30 feet tall by age 45.

Then there is the problem of academic publishing. Professors get good
marks at their universities when a scientific paper is published.
Published papers and books result in promotion and tenure. Academics
are more likely to go along to get along instead of challenging
consensus.

In 1999 German scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research concluded that the Sahara's abrupt desertification started by
changes in the earth's orbit. Could they get their views published
today?

Even in unrelated academic papers we see brief asides to global
warming, as in:

"And with global warming more lemmings are expected to take the suicide
jump."

Then there is misleading terminology. So called ocean
acidification is one. The image is of little fish being stripped of
their flesh by acid. In fact, the oceans are nowhere near acidic on a
pH scale. Research shows that there has been some slight movement
toward neutral. But neutrification of the ocean does not have the same
effect.

No one should doubt that the world has gotten warmer. The latest Ice
Age is gone along with the megafauna. There is no doubt that the oceans
are rising and have done so

for
11,000 years. And there should not be a dispute about making the air
cleaner.
The United Nations is a political organization, not a scientific
one. There is reasonable fear that the whole global warming scenario is
about control.

Proponents of global warming see a placid past. They warn that a warmer
earth will create more hurricanes, deserts and other life-threatening
conditions. In fact, the world has been anything but placid. North
Africa used to be the breadbasket of the Roman Empire. Giant cypress
used to cover the U.S. Midwest. Volcano eruptions darken the skies for
decades, causing civilizations to collapse. Long droughts do the same
thing. And then a rock from space really messes up the landscape.
Change is inevitable and frequently unwelcome.

The ocean has risen hundreds of feet in the last 11,000 years. The
plain of Nicoya is now the Gulf of Nicoya. Florida's west coast used to
be hundreds of miles distant. The turtles have endured, despite
these
changes. So warnings that global warming will inundate the breeding
grounds may be true but give little credit to the turtles and nature's
way of making more beaches.

There is a major U.N. climate conference in December intended to reach
an international deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Will anyone
present a view that global warming will have some benefits?

The Costa Rican economics ministry Monday announced an Alianza para la
Carbono Neutralidad. The idea is to encourage more and more companies
to adjust their operations to generate less carbon dioxide. All this is
being done against a backdrop of active volcanoes that are spewing tons
of all sorts of gases into the the atmosphere.

Does anyone want to bet that the alliance will quickly become mandatory?

Should not the government direct its attention to inevitable change and
take appropriate action?

Some expats
are surprised that the constitutional court could find the corporate
tax law unconstitutional yet still encourage collection through the end
of this year.

This is just another example of the magistrates in the Corte Suprema de
Justicia legislating. The court also found that a constitutional
prohibition against appointing clergy as government ministers does not
include individuals who are not Catholic.

Expats need to remember that magistrates are political appointees. When
the court was deciding the fate of Melvin Jiménez, the minister
of the Presidencia, the central government was considering the national
budget, which includes money for the judiciary.

Judicial activism goes back much further than that. Óscar Arias
Sánchez received the right for a second term, thanks to a
favorable judicial opinion. The 2003 ruling by the Sala IV was the
second attempt to overturn the 1969 constitutional prohibition.
Basically the court found the constitution to be unconstitutional in
much the same way it did to allow Jiménez, a Lutheran
bishop, to keep his government job.

But the court went further in the Arias case. Out of thin air it ruled
that presidents must wait four years before seeking re-election.

The activism
continues with the decision that the annual tax on
mercantile companies is not constitutional. The legislature, the court
found, failed to publish significant changes to the measure before it
was passed.

That is an allegation that can be checked easily, a slam-dunk in other
words. There was no reason for the Sala IV magistrates to wait
nearly
a year before announcing the decision. Suspicious minds might think
that the magistrates did so in order to give the government a slug of
money even if the law was unconstitutional.

The decision said operators
of corporations must pay the tax, nearly $400 for active corporations,
for 2015. And there was no suggestion that the government should give
back the money collected with an unconstitutional tax.

Some lawyers
were quick to challenge that position in another appeal.

The finance ministry noted that 95 percent of the money collected from
the tax goes to the security ministry to improve law enforcement, as if
that justified an unconstitutional tax.

Expats might find refreshing a constitutional court that decides legal
issues based on jurisprudence instead of the political winds.

— Feb. 2, 2015

An A.M. Costa
Rica editorial
A national budget that cannot be cut requires much more tax

The decision by
the full legislature Thursday night to reject 3.8 percent in cuts to
the 2015 national budget is a sure sign that the Solís
administration will push for higher taxes instead of a combination of
more taxes and reductions in expenses.

With the current legislative makeup, a good bet is that any new taxes
will target corporations and higher income individuals.

The government of Luis Guillermo Solís has been promoting a
value-added tax. Officials were thrilled when a World Bank adviser
suggested a 15 percent tax instead of the existing 13 percent sales tax.

Legislative members of Frente Amplio said they voted against budget
reductions to protect social spending in the budget. They are unlikely
to support a plan like a value-added tax that takes money from all
levels of society. Such a tax is called regressive, and that is a good
reason for the more leftist members of the legislature to oppose it.

A long time technique of this and other governments is to mouth
platitudes about helping the poor while erecting complicated and
extensive bureaucracies purportedly to help the underclass. And also
brothers-in-law.

There also are the
bait-and-switch tactics of governments. Solís may
say he seeks a 15 percent value-added tax just to generate opposition.
If he then switches themes and moves to sock it to the wealthy and the
corporations, he will have instant support from those who opposed the
value-added tax.

A week from today begins the so-called extraordinary session of the
legislature. These are the periods in the year when the executive
branch controls the agenda. This is when the central government will be
sending up proposed legislation to lawmakers.

Later in the week, Casa
Presidencial will outline what bills these will be. Plans for new taxes
are expected.

Solís, himself, opposed cuts to the proposed budget. So there is
a
pretty good chance that major reductions in government spending will
not be forthcoming.

Presumably no one in government has heard of the law of diminishing
returns.

—Nov.
24, 2014

An A.M. Costa
Rica editorial

A real
investigation requires outside experts

The idea sounds
great: To create a commission to investigate the penetration of
organized crime and drug traffickers into the judiciary.

That is until the members of the commission are listed. They are the
magistrates, chief prosecutor and the head of the Judicial
Investigating Organization. At the very least, these people do not have
the time to conduct a deep investigation. At worst, one could say these
are the usual suspects who got their jobs by politicking in a warped
and perhaps corrupt institution.

After all, the chief prosecutor is supposed to prosecute crimes like
this anyway.

The supreme court magistrates and others in the judiciary are stung
because a sitting judge in Limón is accused of influencing the
outcome of drug cases.

So the judiciary wants to put more judges in Limón and even
provide more training. Judges need training to realize they should not
be crooked?

And why the emphasis on organized crime and drug cases. Are not there
enough suspicious activities within the courts that wholesale
investigations are warranted? What about those many cases of property

theft that
prosecutors never get around to trying? How about the use of the courts
to extort money from otherwise upstanding individuals. How about the
judges who hand down light sentences because they fear members of the
community. How about the judges who hand down sentences that have
little relation to reality?

There is a lot wrong with the system, and a commission with a 30-day
deadline will not solve even the little problems.

The magistrates need to go outside the existing system and bring in
real investigators and real judicial experts. And they need to seek
input from the public. And they should not concentrate on Limón.
Every one of the judicial districts generates suspicious actions.

A.M. Costa Rica hears frequently from expats who think that they have
been cheated or mistreated in the courts. And these are a very small
subset of the people who live in this country.

And the investigating should extend to the disciplinary process at the
Colegio de Abogodos, the lawyer protective association. It appears that
the only reason the colegio pulls the license of a lawyer is if he or
she does not pay required dues. The organization has been granted a
public responsibility. It should be much more aggressive.

—
May 21, 2014

A clever politician like Araya will not be cowed by opinion
polls

Well, news people
will not have Johnny Araya to kick around any more. Or will they?

Araya was far more gracious in terminating his campaign Wednesday than
was Richard Nixon in 1962 when he lost the California governorship.
Nixon's bitter comment about not getting kicked around any more proves
that strange things happen in politics.

Araya's surprise announcement Wednesday that basically said he will not
compete for the presidency April 6 also was a surprise. That does not
mean he can be counted out.

Behind that smiling face is the brain of a politician. He has survived
all sorts of crises. The odds are that he will be back.

A few expat political pundits, fueled with Imperial, might say Araya
was chicken and did not want to be humiliated in the runoff election.
Some Costa Ricans were heard saying this Wednesday afternoon. Araya's
skin is tougher than that.

The decision not
to campaign appears more of a strategic withdrawal. Araya said he did
not want to continue with expensive political advertising and was
making the decision for the benefit of the Costa Rican people. By not
bankrupting the Partido Liberación Nacional, the political
organization can continue to be a major player.

There are little more than four weeks left before the runoff.
Regardless of the public opinion deficit that Araya saw in polling
data, there was still a chance to be victorious, even with the Marquess
of Queensberry campaign rules that the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones
imposes.

That suggests there still is a fact unknown that figures prominently in
Araya's decision.

Of course, if all goes as expected and Luis Guillermo Solís
becomes president, he may wish he quit when he sees the financial mess
and the many other problems facing the nation.

—
March 6, 2014

An A.M. Costa
Rica editorial
Stadium melee is logical result of fuzzy thinking

Costa Rican
officials are treating the riot by soccer fans Sunday as a sports
problem.

President Laura Chinchilla met Wednesday with presidents of the various
professional soccer clubs, representatives of the Federación
Costarricense de Fútbol, the national sports institute and
security officials.

The rioting during a professional soccer game Sunday at the Estadio
Nacional is a reflection of a criminal justice problem. These
individuals are members of groups identified as sports fans or barras. In fact, they are criminal
gangs that are responsible for many of the crimes in the metro area.

These gangs grew and developed because of the country's dysfunctional
court system and its permissive attitude towards youngsters. Ms.
Chinchilla should have been meeting with magistrates and lawmakers to
tighten up the juvenile code.

Of course, many of the members of these barras are not juveniles now,
although they benefited in their youth from a court system that seldom
punishes crimes by those under 18. At least we don't think so. It's
hard to tell because all that is done in secret.

Costa Rica is harvesting what it has sown. These barras include persons
in their middle ages. And most members of the group are over 18.

So far the only action against those involved in the Sunday melee is

preventative
detention against two young toughs who were caught in the act of
committing a robbery inside the stadium. Although as many as 53 persons
were detained, little real punishment is expected.

At the risk of provoking outrage one might suggest that what is needed
here is a series of sound thrashings. Costa Rica, of course, considers
corporal punishment to be child abuse. Officials are not too fond
either of sending 12-year-olds out into the fields for harvest. Local
representatives of the United Nations and a litany of non-profit child
defense groups also would be outraged by these character building
procedures.

Costa Rica is operating with outdated social science principles when
officials insist on keeping secret the names of youthful offenders. Do
they expect something magic to happen when anti-social youth reaches 18?

Day after day judicial investigators or Fuerza Pública officers
detain persons under 18 for major crimes. Then nothing more is heard of
the case. Many are repeat, repeat, repeat offenders.

The country needs effective and tough criminal enforcement even for the
juveniles. That way they will not grow up to be the individuals who are
keeping the crime rate so high.

Ms. Chinchilla has issued a decree with penalties for misbehavior at
sporting events. What about on the streets?

— Feb.
20, 2014

Human rights appear to be restricted to national borders now

Costa Rica took a
step into murky ethical grounds when President Laura Chinchilla
accepted the temporary presidency of the Community of Latin American
and Caribbean States last week.

The group of 33 nations met in Havana, and Ms. Chinchilla probably is
thrilled that she could bring home this prize to her country.

There is just one problem. The heads of state agreed to these
statements as well as others:

• The commitment of the states of the region with their strict
obligation not to intervene, directly or indirectly, in the internal
affairs of any other state and observe the principles of national
sovereignty, equal rights and self-determination of peoples.

• The commitment of the Latin American and Caribbean States to fully
respect for the inalienable right of every state to choose its
political, economic, social, and cultural system, as an essential
condition to ensure peaceful coexistence among nations.

Raúl
Castro, the conference host, was thrilled at the resolutions. So should
any other tin pot politician. By contrast the Organization of American
States, the competing hemispheric organization, supports democracy and
once expelled Cuba for its brutal policies.

The twin resolutions say pretty much the same thing: One country should
not interfere in the policies or conditions in another.

But isn't Costa Rica the country that went to war in 1956 to throw
filibuster William Walker out of Nicaragua? The country also was with
the allies during World War II.

But now, enslavement, second-class citizens and perhaps even
concentration camps will be OK if another country choses to set up such
a system.

This is the same organization that a day earlier sided with Argentina
and called on Britain to negotiate over the Falkland Islands. Perhaps
they forgot that Margaret Thatcher already sent negotiators to the
islands in 1982.

—
Feb. 3, 2014

An A.M. Costa
Rica editorial
Foes and backers of global warming should not use single event as
evidence

Those who dispute
human-caused global warming are using the brutal cold spell in the
United States and Canada as evidence to support their argument. But so
are those who support the idea that human activity is driving the
freeze.

Last March the Weather Underground reported
that some scientists, eyeing the fourth year in a row of
exceptionally harsh late-winter weather in parts of Europe and North
America, suggest warming is precisely the problem.

A Web
site called politicususa.com reported Sunday that despite a bitter
cold weekend in the U.S., climate models indicate global warming is
intensifying.

The Union of Concerned Scientists said Friday on its Web
site that hotter air around the globe causes more moisture to be
held in the air than in prior seasons, so when storms occur, this added
moisture can fuel heavier precipitation in the form of more intense
rain or snow.

Another
site, Grist, instructs true believers how to respond to people who
cite cold weather as evidence against global warming. "Researchers
expected a colder winter — thanks to global warming," it said.

Clearly snippets of evidence can be used to support any argument. Here
are some facts:

1. The world is getting warmer. The Northern U.S. and Canada are not
groaning under gigantic glaciers. They have receded but probably will
return. They have in the past.

2. The sea level is rising. The plain of Nicoya where megafauna once
romped is now under water and called the gulf of Nicoya. The oceans
have risen some 200 feet since the end of the Ice Age.

3. Clean air is good. Efforts to eliminate vehicle exhaust and
industrial pollution will lengthen many lives.

4. Politicians will continue to exploit for their own benefit any
physical or social change. And they may do it with out full knowledge
of what they are doing.

A graph like this one that uses
small increments in measurement tends to exaggerate the changes.

5. Scientists and academics will continue to be rated, evaluated,
promoted and praised for sticking to the orthodox line in whatever
research papers they publish.

6. Extrapolation is bad science. Measure the growth spurt of a child
and then extrapolate. You will estimate your youngster's height will be
30 feet by the time he or she reaches 35.

7. Garbage in means garbage out even with the most sophisticated
computer models, either about the weather or who will win the Superbowl.

8. Average is a statistical term, but real world data have a tendency
to dance around the average.

9. The measurement of world temperatures is statistical sampling, so
the results must have a range of probability around them. The world has
warmed 1.53 degrees F (0.85 degrees C) from 1880 to 2012, according to
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

10. The benefits of a warmer world have hardly been addressed.

When there are problems at the embassy, it is the system and
not the people

There are several
problems with the way the State Department interacts with U.S. citizens
and others overseas.

A story
on Page One Nov. 14 outlines such a case. The problems are really
systemic rather than individual.

We cannot think of a person we know who has worked at an embassy in a
customer service capacity who was not open and friendly. It is the
system that is at fault for many of the bad feelings among expats and
Costa Ricans.

A Costa Rican who is denied a visa quickly learns that there is no
formal appeal process. There ought to be one.

Additionally, the State Department applies the U.S. Privacy Act
overbroadly so that nearly all of the embassy's actions are hidden.
This cuts both ways. Bad decisions can be hidden from the public. But
also the embassy can be hampered in replying to false or misleading
accusations.

Most of the time State Department officials work in a country where
there is no resident English-language press. Embassy workers here are
not that lucky. A.M. Costa Rica tries to keep track of embassy
activities. That is not an easy job because the embassy is a closed
community and reporters are infrequently welcomed.

Usually news stories are about silly or bad events. There was the case
when embassy staffers turned down a Costa Rican business woman who
sought a visa to attend the funeral of her U.S. citizen son who was
killed in action in Iraq. She eventually went.

Then there is the $50,000 electric car that cannot travel across
country.

There also have
been news stories about how embassy staffers refuse to confront the
truth of legal adult prostitution in Costa Rica when they prepare the
annual trafficking in persons report. One would think that they might
just mention it to provide some background for those reading about the
country.

We also question some of the feel-good grants to organizations that are
supposedly rehabilitating former prostitutes. Some in Washington have a
guilt complex.

Then there are the politically appointed ambassadors of either party
who are spending taxpayers' money here fattening their resumes.

Despite these, one must have respect for many of the embassy staffers
who have served in war-torn areas. But we demand that they follow their
own rules. If they cite the Privacy Act, they must know that death
extinguishes privacy concerns. But embassy spokesperson still do not
comment on the circumstances surrounding a dead American. Sometimes the
information is critical and unlikely to be provided by the local
police. Has the embassy ever gone public with an appeal about a missing
American? The Australians and the French have.

Many Americas have had trouble finding out about relatives missing or
dead in Costa Rica. The State Department which makes the rules insists
that information must only be shared with legitimate next-of kin who
may not be a mother or a sister. Embassy staffers should have a little
freedom to act in what they think is best considering the situation.

And the embassy workers should be able to answer questions candidly
abut their job and their interaction with the public so that taxpayers
can evaluate their work.

—
Nov. 14, 2013

What the country needs is a balanced
budget amendment

A drunken sailor
in port on leave has a more stable financial situation than Costa Rica.

The central government is spending about twice as much as it brings in.
Now the finance ministry is setting up roundtables so that the public
can have a chance to comment.

Few of the public will attend, and the sessions will be dominated by
special interests. After all, how many citizens can talk intelligently
on national fiscal policy and national debt?

There is no secret to solving the governments problem. Officials must
spend less, reduce the state workforce and encourage private
enterprise. Unfortunately, just like in Washington, these are not words
politicians want to hear. They want to continue handing out somebody
else's money to get votes.

What Costa Rica and the United States need are balanced budget
amendments. The amendment should say that spending cannot exceed
income. Some U.S. states have this, and the state lawmakers know that
if they fail they could face criminal charges.

That is not what the various special interest want. There are so many
boards, panels and such that probably even Edgar Ayales, the minister,
knows where the money is going.

We have said in the past that every colon spent should be listed in a
Web site with the name of the recipient and the reason for the expense.
That is called transparency, which is esteemed more in principal than
practice. The technology to do this is here now with the Internet.

In the short-run Costa Rica (and the United States) have some hard
decisions. They must divest unneeded government property. What ever
happened to the inventory of state-owned property that was ordered here
three years ago?

Consider how many mostly empty pretty buildings the Costa Rica
government owns. And they keep buying and fixing up more.

Many politicians pay lip service to the phrase that those who have more
should pay more. That is a justification for

progressive taxation. Why is this true? We suspect that these
politicians have been hanging around Europe too long where the
socialist states are in full bloom.

The Friday column.

By Jay Brodell, editor

How about some of these measures:

• Require every patient who visits the Caja Costarricense de Seguro
Social for medical care, hospital or clinic, to pay 1,000 colons, about
$2.

• Revisit the nation's environmental policy and consider again the
benefits of gold, oil and natural gas production.

• Get that dry canal running from Limón to Caldera on the
national rail line. Unload ships in Limón and put the cargo on
another boat in Caldera. This is cheaper than going through the
Panamá Canal.

• Eliminate aguinaldos, the Christmas bonus, from part-time board
positions and other administrative posts that are not real jobs.

• Do a complete inventory of state-owned vehicles to see which are
necessary. Too many officials are being driven to lunch in state
vehicles.

• Mandate that any new spending bills here or in Washington to include
a statement as to from where the money is coming.

• Reduce the number of ministries as well as the number of employees.
Does Costa Rica really need a sports ministry?

• Consider some sting operations as a reader suggested Thursday to
catch evaders.

• Eliminate the dedicated taxes that tie the hands of central
government budget writers

We wonder how many of these obvious actions will show up in the final
proposed tax laws the finance ministry comes up with.

—
Oct. 18, 2013

Who has the biggest motive for the Syrian gas attack?

The question no
one seems anxious to answer is what was the strategy that would have
caused troops loyal to the Syrian government to fire missiles with
deadly gas on civilians.

President Barack Obama goes on television tonight to try to rally the
United States to support some sort of strike against the Syrian regime.

The attack Aug. 21 supposedly was on a Damascus suburb that wire
services say were populated with opposition supporters. About 1,400
persons died.

Said Obama in his weekly address Saturday:

"We are the United States of America. We cannot turn a blind eye to
images like the ones we have seen out of Syria."

But what was the goal in gassing at least 400 children? The answer to
that is troubling to the utmost.

There was no strategic advantage to the Syrian regime from the attack.
The murders were designed for headlines. The principal suspects are 1.)
the opposition, 2.) certain people in Washington or perhaps Langley.
Whoever did the crime is trying to take advantage of Obama's low
popularity and his desire to act presidential.

But the real danger is that if the U.S. launches some form of attack,
there could be a false flag operation within the United States that
could be blamed on the Iranians or Muslim terrorists. The advantage to
that would be further tightening of the central governments control in
light of the embarrassment over the NSA eavesdropping.

Certainly the Syrian opposition would love to see the United
States enter the civil war on its side. Considering the caliber of

the people in the
opposition, a gas attack to make a political point is not out of the
question.

The Israelis, who have been considered suspects, really have no
advantage in supporting either side. Israeli officials hope for a
prolonged and bloody civil war wiping out any number of potential
enemies.

But what about the motives of some in the United States. A.M. Costa
Rica is not a fan of Barack Obama. But this newspaper could never
believe that he or his close aides were behind the attack for public
relations reasons. Some have suggested that Obama wants to launch an
attack against Syria so he would look presidential. And he may do that.
Even if Obama had such a depraved mind that he would engineer a sarin
gas attack, the presidency is far too visible to keep such an act
hidden for long.

That is why the suspicions fall on the dark figures lurking in the
basements of certain government buildings. These are places where
pragmatism rules, and morality
and ethics are words in a
dictionary.

Suppose Obama launches an attack. Suddenly sarin gas canisters are
opened in New York City with fatal results. The U.S. response to this
presumed attack would be to tighten further the unconstitutional
actions of the new authoritarians in Washington. More restrictions on
travel. Perhaps martial law. Perhaps justification for NSA
eavesdropping and the need for more.

The best part of this conspiracy is that most officials would not have
to be in on the dirty secret. They would respond knee-jerk and
uncritically to the presumed threat.

—Sept.
9, 2013

Public
opinion seems to have done a quick handstand

By
Jay Brodelleditor of A.M. Costa Rica

Some 24 years ago in the twilight of the Cold War, there

seemed to be
cultural and psychological differences that allowed residents of some
nations to accept authoritarianism and others to cherish their
independence.

Colleagues and I set out to map these differences and create an index
that would define population groups by their opinions on freedom of
expression and censorship.

That project came from the old idea that people get the government they
deserve.

We presumed that Russians wanted to have a czar, so residents there
were high on acceptance of censorship. Latin Americans, we thought,
highly valued professionalism, so they would accept rules that required
university degrees for reporters.

Individuals differ, but the average of their opinions, we thought,
could be calculated and compared to the opinions of residents of other
countries.

There is a lot of evidence to support that. The British

accept an official secrets
act. Costa Rica once tried to force anyone reporting for a newspaper to
be a member of the Colegio de Periódistas. Some Latin countries
still do.

Naturally, we considered the United States with its First Amendment as
the perfect standard by which all other countries should be judged.

The idea has some merit and grew out of the scholarship on dimensions
of freedom of the late, great John Calhoun Merrill of Louisiana State
University and the

University of Missouri, although he had no part in the planning.

A little while
later the Iron Curtain collapsed opening up previously inaccessible
countries to academic study.

The jubilation of the destruction of the wall between East and
West seemed to be a ratification of the idea that all peoples would
seek freedom and free expression if given the chance. That was the
dream.

The index project never got completed because of time and other
endeavors, and, in retrospect, clearly we were naive.

Today such a project would have to consider fear of personal safety and
other factors that cause citizens to accept the actions of their
governments.

There once was a time when many newspeople thought that the public was
prone to defend free expression and their reporting.

If a heavy-handed authoritarian figure rose up to squelch the press,
the people would rise up and duplicate the final scenes in

"Frankenstein" along with
the torches and the pitchforks.

Richard Nixon had been run out of office for spying on Democrats and
other members of the public. He had an enemies list. He used the
Internal Revenue Service to attack opponents. He was soon gone.

What would have happened if The Washington Post learned Nixon's crew
had intercepted 56,000 messages of innocents?

The mood of the U.S. public seems to have changed drastically since
1974 or 1989, and what was considered attributes of the public mind are
clearly false now.

Imagine a new index questionnaire that asked respondents:

1. How likely are you to allow federal officers to inspect your shoes
as you walk barefoot through the airport?

2. How strongly would you oppose letting security guards xray you down
to your undies before you board a plane.

3. Would you call yourself concerned or unconcerned if thousands of
your fellow citizens were prohibited from flying in airplanes for
reasons that were not disclosed to them?

4. How strongly would you support rounding up Muslims and putting them
in camps to keep our country safe?

Obviously we must begin working on a totally new index.

—
Aug. 23, 2013

An A.M. Costa
Rica editorial
Tell our public servants to follow the Constitution

Because
today is July 4, the 237th anniversary of the political experiment
which is the United States of America, it would seem fitting to share
this editorial with Thomas Jefferson:

". . . Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any
Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right
of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
Safety and Happiness."

Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry, James Mason and other
anti-federalist founders also produced this paragraph:

"The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be
seized."

These philosophies matured in 1776 as revolutionary documents that have
moved the world. For many of the downtrodden, the United States has
been a beacon of freedom and justice.

Today that beacon is faltering because of what Dwight Eisenhower termed
the military-industrial complex. Today these are the people put to work
technologies to abrogate the natural rights of every American and
non-American.

More specifically, there is no justification for universal
eavesdropping on telephone calls, emails and other forms of
communications by federal bureaucrats and secret courts. Nor is there
justification for weak-willed lawmakers to accept the argument that
such destruction of human rights are necessary to guard against
terrorism.

The eagle is unhappy.

This is not a partisan issue. Republicans and Democrats are equally at
fault. The people now have the responsibility to set things straight.
Each American has the responsibility to defend these historic rights.
That includes expats overseas.
They must raise their voices to their elected representatives and even
the overseas representatives of that government which has gone off the
track.

Tell them today at the picnic that electronic surveillance by the
government is a crime. Tell stateside representatives that they better
reject all those fake arguments by the National Security Agency and
other nameless agencies as well as administration mouthpieces. Tell the
president to live up to his oath of office and defend the U.S.
Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.

The out-of-control intelligence community must be curbed and those
violating Amendment IV of the U.S. Constitution (above) must pay the
price for their excesses.

And this outrage should extend to the use of drone aircraft flying in
the nation's skies. What are these people thinking?

We do not trust the spy agencies. We do not trust their friends in the
legislature and the courts. We believe that Thomas Jefferson knew what
he was writing.

— James J. Brodell
July 4, 2013

There should be no citizenship path for
U.S. illegal immigrants

Illegal immigrants in the United
States should not be granted a path to citizenship.

The immigration bill now in the U.S. Senate is a bad idea. It rewards
illegal acts.

In addition, the security of the country's border should not be linked
to legalizing illegal immigrants. The border should be secure. Period.

Democrats and Republicans who support the measure are simply playing
politics to win themselves some votes. It is not true that just because
someone had family roots in Latin America they favor this current
amnesty proposal. Many Central and South Americans took the long, hard
route to gain U.S. residency. To reward law breakers is an insult to
them.

The United States should first secure the border. The first step should
be in not returning those caught trying to enter the United States
illegally. They should be charged and convicted. Then they should
be imprisoned. Now when illegal immigrant are returned to México
they simply try again.

After securing the border, the
United States should find out exactly who is in the country illegally.
They should offer an illegal immigration identification card.
Those who apply for the card and are found to be free of serious
criminal convictions should be allowed to stay temporarily. Those who
do not apply should be caught and deported.

There also should be an effective seasonable labor program created to
provide farm workers. But the time in the country should be short, and
families should stay in México.

Once those who do not apply for the ID card are rounded up, sorted out
and deported, the country will have a better idea of the illegal
immigrant situation. However, at no time in the future should these law
breakers be able to win citizenship. Residency perhaps.

The current program that is in the U.S. Senate is not workable.
Illegals in the United States are unlikely to learn English and take
all the steps required in the amnesty program. Then what?

—
June 27, 2013

Self defense is a fundamental human right
even for expats

Self-defense is clearly a
fundamental right. That has been the rule in Anglo Saxon jurisprudence
since at least the 17th century,

The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld this principle in District of
Columbia v. Heller in 2008 and again in McDonald v. Chicago two years
later.

Yet the Laura Chinchilla administration is systematically stripping
expats of this fundamental right. A proposed law would mimic a
presidential decree that forbids all but permanent residents from
owning a firearm.

We think that persons in many other residency categories should be able
to exercise this right. Pensionados,
by definition, are older residents. Firearms training makes them equal
to some strung-out junkie who invades their homes. Rentistas are called that because
they have a significant monthly flow of money. This makes them prime
targets for crooks. Let's not forget inversionistas.
By definition, persons in this immigration category have money.

How about those folks here on a missionary visa who frequently find
themselves in the more crime-ridden parts of the country?

President Chinchilla can afford to be above this debate because she is
surrounded by men with guns. The proposed firearms bill in the
legislature would allocate three handguns each to every minister and
vice minster. Mere mortals who are citizens or permanent residents
would be restricted to one.

Why not let ministers apply for a gun permit just like any other
citizen if they think they need one. Or is it because President
Chinchilla does not understand governments are supposed to

fear the citizenry and not the other
way around?

There is a long history in the world of disarming vulnerable citizens.
Protestants disarmed Catholics in 17th century England.

Those who helped write the U.S. Constitution feared that the federal
government would disarm the people in order to disable a citizens’
militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to
rule, the U.S. Supreme Court noted in McDonald.

After the U.S. Civil War, the Southern States engaged in systematic
efforts to disarm and injure African Americans, as the U.S. Supreme
court noted in Heller.

The Chinchilla administration or the subsequent administration needs to
recognize the human right that is inherent in self defense and restore
that right to pensionados and rentistas. And the right should be
extended to other vulnerable classes.

The penalty for using a firearm in the commission of a crime should be
toughened. How often are crooks let off with a rap of the knuckles
after shooting a robbery victim. Each day there are gun crimes reported
but infrequently are there any penalties announced.

Everyone in Costa Rica would be happy to give up firearms if they were
assured that there would be no crime and that the police and legal
system would be adequate protection. That is not reality, and the
president knows it.

If she wants to save lives, Ms. Chinchilla would be better off making
motorcycles illegal instead of restricting guns.

—
June 23, 2013

Overreaching is a sure way to destroy the
security of U.S.

The news that the U. S. security
agencies are neck deep in data about the communications of citizens
should come as no surprise to those living overseas. For years, the
U.S. has acknowledged that foreign telephone calls, emails and other
forms of communication were routinely intercepted.

The shocking part of the revelations last week is that this is
happening to U.S. citizens in the United States. Also shocking is that
President Barack Obama says that the loss of some constitutional
privacy is worth the information collected by the surveillance.

Talk about a slippery slope.

Of course, average Americans probably would agree as long as their
world is not disturbed. For the National Security Agency

and the other organizations that are
spending billions to collect this data, the program augments their
power and their number of employees.

Sitting in front of a computer screen checking out thousands of
telephone calls is a lot easier than actually doing police work.

Meanwhile the borders of the United States still are porous, and the
Obama administration is spending millions to bring potential terrorists
and their families to the country.

We can think of no better way to destroy the effectiveness of
legitimate national security than to encourage overreaching programs
that eventually will bring a public backlash.

—
June 10, 2013

What is the real reason behind the push to restrict guns?

Costa Rica and the
United States have in common administrations that do not appreciate
firearms.

Costa Rican lawmakers are moving on a new firearms law that increases
the difficulty of a permanent resident or a citizen who seeks to
protect home or possessions.

In the United States courageous senators who declined to be stampeded
to approve meaningless restrictions on the transfer and type of
firearms are objects of scorn, even from the White House. Especially
from the White House.

The Costa Rica law would restrict
ownership of handguns to one per person. It forbids anyone younger than
15 from firing a weapons. And it forbids using informal firing ranges.
There are a lot of other restrictions that appear to be designed to
increase black market sales. The law even would continue the silly
practice of having gun permit applicants visit a psychiatrist or
psychologist. And it continues the prohibition on rentistas and
pensionados from owning weapons.

Costa Rican officials claim to be big believers in human rights. The
U.S. Supreme Court found in 2008 that having a firearm for self defense
was a natural right, one of those inalienable principles that restrict
governments.

In the United
States the vote Wednesday was on requiring registration of every gun
sale and restrictions on so-called assault weapons. Organizing for
Action, a Barack Obama group, claims that the proposal would protect
children, Of course, it would do no such thing.

These types of legislative attempts are feel-good efforts that may even
be sinister. They do nothing to address the root causes of firearm
deaths. In Costa Rica, the primary cause seems to be drug
trafficking dispute. In the United States, political correctness and
lack of money has prevented early intervention of troubled individuals.

A main purpose of firearms possession, other than self defense, is to
be a check on government. Hunting is not a consideration. Folks with
guns have a much lower threshold for excessive taxes and
authoritarianism than those without guns.

The vote in the United States clearly reflected the public's concern of
some type of government gun registration program.

One has to ask why are the Laura Chinchilla and the Barack Obama
administrations pushing firearms restrictions that everyone knows will
not have the desired effect. This is a very good question.

—
April 19, 2013

An A.M. Costa Rica editorial

Why is there so
much whining about a small cut in the budget?

We have little sympathy for U.S.
government officials who are grandstanding over the prospect of a 3
percent cut in their budgets.

John Kerry, the new secretary of State, said that a reduction in his
agency's budget would endanger the nation's overseas mission. Those of
us who are overseas know well that U.S. government money can be
effective. But we also know that the United States cannot be all things
to all people.

A summary of the State Department budget produced by former secretary
Hillary Clinton shows the wide reach of U.S. financing. And that is
just the State Department.

Here in Costa Rica we have seen the local U.S. Embassy hold periodic
sales of what are considered surplus goods. The items range from
computers to home appliances to vehicles. We are not convinced that the
U.S. government is getting a fair price for these items, and we do not
think anyone is checking.

The firm hired to sell the items, Rematico, does not seem to be very
aggressive in marketing. And an embassy official once told us that
diplomats there were not interested in the prices received, they just
wanted to get rid of the stuff.

Diplomats pay income taxes, too, so
his cavalier attitude is hard to understand.

We won't say much about the electric car purchased by the embassy. We
would have preferred a machine that could at least reach Quepos.

The Costa Rica government is no better. Whenever a foreign ambassador
leaves, there is a big party at the foreign ministry and the exiting
diplomat gets a big, shiny decoration. We wonder why as we walk past
the dead wine bottles awaiting trash pickup the following morning.

We also have to give credit to the current U.S. ambassador, Anne
Slaughter Andrew, who decided last year to make the embassy's July 4
celebration a scholarship event instead of the typical booze party for
well-placed local officials and foreign diplomats. That kind of
thinking has to prevail if the U.S. is going to get a grip on its
deficit and budget.

Perhaps Kerry could give her a call as he seeks to trim the budget. And
if that doesn't work, he could always call Ron Paul.

The basic rule of
democracy is what is called here transparency.
The public has to know what is going on.

The Laura Chinchilla administration has been big on public relations in
an effort to obscure the facts from the public. But that is nothing
compared to the ill-advised law passed in 2011 with the goal of
protecting personal privacy.

As readers learned Wednesday,
the judiciary is now eliminating names from up to 40,000 court files in
order to protect citizens. There is a litany of items that must be
erased, ranging from names, cédula numbers to sexual orientation
and telephone numbers.

The legislature is the home of unintended consequences, and we are sure
that lawmakers did not intend to protect crooks, sex perverts, child
molesters, deadbeats and bad tenants. The judiciary is following the
law and actually started doing so some months ago.

Lot of occupations depend on the court records.

which have been
accumulated by various credit reporting agencies. Landlords would like
to make sure that a potential tenant has not been evicted multiple
times. Employers would like to make sure that the new accountant did
not face conviction for embezzlement.

Of course, judicial workers will continue to have access to these
files. And perhaps for a small fee, someone with a burning desire to
find out about someone will be able to do so. The general public will
be excluded, however.

The approach is similar to the misguided juvenile justice program here
and in many other locations where the names of young toughs are kept
from the eyes of the public so it is a surprise when the bad egg guns
down someone later. These efforts at protection are not for the
criminals or the participants in court cases. The protection is for the
public officials so that the public cannot evaluate the job they are
doing.

They say sometimes that Costa Rica is behind the times. In this case,
that is true. Welcome to "1984."

This newspaper does not share the
deep concern shown by others because the legislature tried to sack a
sitting magistrate.

Politics aside, the Corte Suprema de Justicia is the top judicial
agency. The magistrates are responsible for the conduct of the
prosecutors and the judges. By extension, they also are responsible for
the conduct of notaries and other lawyers.

For years we have seen ridiculous delays in the judicial system. We
have seen wholesale land frauds affecting both Costa Ricans and expats.

We have seen criminals go free by buying their way out of the crime.

We have seen endless delays in
cases that are groundless. Andwe have seen allegations of corruption in
the judicial process.

We think magistrates have the job of seeing that the system works and
that justice prevails. By that standard the current members of the high
court are sorely lacking.

The 38 legislators who voted to deny re-election to a current
magistrate may have done so for the darkest reasons. But they are on
the right track. Something must be done to rupture the complacency that
typifies the current judicial system.

We think the Corte Suprema de Justicia need new blood.

—Nov.
21, 2012

An A.M. Costa Rica editorial
First World expats do not seem to be able to get a break

Pardon us if we feel that the Costa
Rican government is leaning on the expats here.

First there was the immigration law, new in 2010. Lawmakers said that
those on tourist visas could renew them by just paying $100. That was
good news because snowbirds with $500,00 condos on the Pacific coast
would not have to trundle off to Nicaragua or Panamá in the
middle of a five-month winter visit. But once the law went into effect,
an obscure clause eliminated such renewals by most First World expats.
Snowbirds still have to interrupt their winter vacations to a tourist
run.

Then there was the luxury home tax. Now that tax also covered Costa
Ricans who owned homes estimated to be worth more than nearly $200,000.
But First World expats are programmed to pay taxes. And most did.

Then there was the rule that all legal foreignrresidents had to join
the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social. Now the Caja hospitals are
great for gunshots and stab wounds. Doctors there get a lot of
practice. But where did President Laura Chinchilla's husband go when he
fell? How about Óscar Arias Sánchez? Those choose private
hospitals as most expats would. That is more money down the drain.

Then there is the DIMEX card, the cédula for legal residents.
Doing business without one is difficult. An expat complained Monday
that Banco de Costa Rica gave him a hard time when he tried to cash a
check using his passport as identification. Not everyone comes to Costa
Rican and obtains residency. See snowbirds above. And how about
international business executives?

Then there is the long-standing reluctance of lawmakers, the judicial
and the central government to tackle the problem of property theft.
Many Costa Ricans are victims of property crooks. But expats are an
especially ripe target. For a dozen years there has been no official
notice of the problem and a few detentions were token arrests.

Now comes the big news that only Costa Ricans or those with legal
residency can obtain a driver's license. That little gem was inserted
into the new traffic law. So those who come in good faith to seek
residency have to still leave the country every 90 days if they seek to
drive on their foreign license. The alternative is a skateboard, bike
or taxi. while expats wait for the turtles at immigration to approve a
residency application and issue a DIMEX card.

Called on this issue, some snob at the transport ministry said Monday
that only Costa Ricans should have a driving license here. Does he not
realize that respect for a foreign license is

enshrined in an international agreement?

Did we mention the additional taxes on tourists?

Of course, business people have it doubly hard. That satellite Internet
firm got strung along for three years before the government was
forced to provide permission to work here.

Now one or two such incidents can be chalked up to ineptitude or
laziness. But a long string of sneaky attacks on expats might just
reveal a mindset. We are reminded of the vice minister who tried to
pass an immigration law that did not include provisions for rentistas,
an important residency category for those foreigners with money but no
firm pension.

What are these people thinking?

—
Nov. 6, 2012

A.M. Costa Rica casts its vote for Mitt Romney

There is no surprise that A.M.
Costa Rica is endorsing Mitt Romney for president of the United States.

Four years ago the newspaper endorsed John McCain and said that Barack
Obama would be a great used car salesman. We have seen no reason to
change our mind. In fact, we have seen many events that validate our
assessment of four years ago.

Clearly this endorsement will not move many minds, if any. Of all the
recent U.S. presidential elections, this one finds the most divided and
unmovable electorate. Although they will not all say so, most persons
already have made up their minds.

Yet, we believe that a newspaper has the obligation to speak out on
pressing public issues. This is the most pressing of all because the
future of the United States hangs in the balance.

We can dismiss much of the accusations that fly on the Internet about
the president. But there are some issues we cannot dismiss. Deep down
we believe that Barack Obama holds contempt for the United States of
America. We believe he sees the country as a larger version of the
Chicago political playground where might makes right.

One area of high concern involved his acceptance of the 2009 Nobel
Prize for Peace. The Norwegian prize committee said it was for his
efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between
peoples. Of course he did not deserve it, and even the parliamentary
committee members admitted they gave the award in anticipation of what
Obama would do, not what he had done.

Mitt
Romney

A gentleman would have declined the Peace Prize and told the committee
to evaluate his work later. A narcissist would accept the prize. A
narcissist short on honor.

In contrast, Mitt Romney is a businessman who basically is being
criticized for his success. A businessman is what the United States
needs now as it totters toward insolvency. This is a man who saved the
2002 Winter Olympics. This is a man who was a successful governor of
Massachusetts.

In any scorecard of accomplishments, Romney ranks far higher than
Obama, who, despite two books, has done very little.

We also would remind readers that the presidency is only one important
institution on the line. The United States needs members of Congress
who read bills before voting and acts in the best interest of the
public and not in the best interest of themselves.

Readers had several months to express preference in the U.S. elections.
Only a few did. The issue is now closed, and we await the evening of
Nov. 6.

—
Oct. 22, 2012

An A.M. Costa
Rica editorial

We
mourn the end of an era for Costa Rican journalism

We take no joy in reporting the
demise of The Tico Times print edition. Print is great, but to create a
print product is expensive these days.

We also liked hot metal and flipping nickels with the large backshop
crew between editions. Hot mental printing is an art. Most union
printers lost their jobs when offset publication became the standard.
One did not need a five-year apprenticeship to type out stories on a
Compugraphic photocomposing machine.

That technique suffered a body blow with the arrival of Macintosh
computers, the laser printer and page composition software. Then came
the Internet.

A.M. Costa Rica is in 90 countries every morning with the touch of a
button. And 12,000 readers view the newspaper with a multitude of
electronic devices. That is not possible with print. But the
advertising is less costly.

The Tico Times has an online
edition, but it always was a stepchild. And A.M. Costa Rica has more
daily readers. Now perhaps The Tico Times newspaper management will
learn how to improve its online offerings.

We welcome competition which can only be a benefit for the
English-speaking expats here as each online newspaper seeks to serve
its readership better.

We also laud Dery Dyer, the owner of The Tico Times, for her many years
of effort in guiding the newspaper.

We also have great respect for her mother, who founded the newspaper,
and her father, who guided it to be the English voice of Central
America during the troubles in Nicaragua.

The Tico Times always has stood for high-quality, honest journalism. So
the end of the print edition is like a death in the family.

An A.M. Costa Rica editorialMisused
preventative detention is a violation of human rights

Whether Arcelio Hernández is
guilty of the criminal charge he is facing, he has a valid point
that preventative detention is a violation of human rights because of
the the way the Costa Rican judiciary practices the procedure.

Suspects can be locked up for long periods before trial. When expats
run afoul of the law they are prime candidates for prison to await the
judicial process that moves at the speed of a slow snail.

There are those who say “Good, jail the bums because the court will
never convict them.” In other words, these folks would like an
investigator and a judge of the first level to determine sentence
before determining guilt.

There have been many cases of expats being jailed for long periods to
await trail. Sometimes they are convicted. Sometimes they are not. But
who compensates the innocent for many months spent in terrible
conditions?

Of course, if one has money and connections, the cell door is opened
quickly.

We are reminded of the murder suspect who spent a few days in jail
before posting $30,000 in bail.

We are reminded of Luis Milanes who spent about a day in jail after he
returned after years as a fugitive.

We are reminded of Roger Crouse, the
Playas de Coco bar owner who killed an assailant in self defense and
then was jailed for many months in Puntarenas. While he was jailed,
neighbors dismantled his bar, vandalized the vehicles in a related limo
service and did other damage. He was acquitted.

Clearly, like the impedimento de salida that keeps suspects in Costa
Rica, preventative detention sometimes is used to bring pressure on
individuals so they will make a cash settlement.

And anyone is vulnerable.

Suspects should be jailed before conviction if they are flight risks or
if they represent a danger to society. They should not be jailed
because investigators and judges think they will not be convicted at
trial. They should not be jailed to appease public sentiment.

Hernández noted that he was jailed for twice the time of the
minimum sentence for the fraudulent administration charge he faces.
There also is a policy in the courts that persons of little prior
criminal convictions are put on probation if the sentence is three
years of less.

What really is needed is speedy trial that takes place within a month
or two of arrest. That, of course, would require something other than a
dysfunctional judicial system.

President Laura Chinchilla has
before her a bill that would authorize theft. She may sign it.

This is the exemption from an earlier law that protected the rights of
authors and publishers. Before her is N° 17342 that was
passed overwhelmingly by legislators.

The proposed law would permit the photocopying of materials for
academic purposes without penalty. Operators of photocopying shops have
ceased reproducing texts illegally because they fear stiff penalties in
the relatively new law.

Basically the Asamblea Legislativa said that students and photocopying
shops are allowed to steal because they are doing so for a good
purpose. We think lawmakers also ought to make their personal vehicles
available for students who need transportation to colleges. And maybe
they should let students drop by a dinnertime if they are hungry.

Costa Rican laws and culture lack an absolute on property rights. We
have seen this with squatters on real estate. Other countries punish
those who move onto private land. But lawmakers here in the distant
past thought it would be a good idea for landless persons to just take
land from others so they could grow crops and feed their families. Now
such invasions are a business with the invaders eventually selling
their rights to middlemen who then make deals with hotels and others.

A certain element of Costa Rican society also thinks that stealing is
fine if the victim is a rich person or a foreigner. Light-fingered
maids and neighbors are facts of life.

Now lawmakers have institutionalized this attitude with a bill to
encourage theft of published and copyrighted materials. They argue that
the rich multinationals who make these books can afford the loss in
sales, and, anyway, the books are too expensive.

A letter to President Chinchilla by Costa Rican book publishers Friday
rejected that idea and said the firms already were losing sales in
anticipation of the president signing the legislation. Óscar
Arias Sánchez, when he was president, signed a decree that
basically allowed bars and restaurants

to play copyrighted music without compensating the creators.

So Ms. Chinchilla would be following in the steps of her mentor to
create socialized textbooks. But it will not be just texts.

The change in the law would open the photocopying floodgates.

The result of the proposed change in the law will be for foreign
publishers to withhold needed books from Costa Rica. Perhaps some folks
at the legislature or Casa Presidential could pen a few local texts on
partial differential equations or anatomy or pharmaceuticals or
strength of materials. But they won't because there is no money in it.
The students will just steal the material by photocopying it.

—
Sept. 3, 2012

An
A.M. Costa Rica editorial
Wacky tax assessment system needs to be improved

The tax scandals of the last two
weeks have shown major flaws in the Costa Rican legal framework.

The former finance minister got in trouble for not updating the value
of some real estate holdings. Elsewhere in the country many property
owners are ducking municipal taxes the same way.

What Costa Rica needs is a uniform method of property assessment and
not rely on the self-reporting of owners.

That is true also for the so-called luxury tax where owners of
expensive houses have to report the value themselves.

Unfortunately, the property assessment system here is flawed. A.M.
Costa Rica has reported in the past that appraisers here use
replacement cost new less depreciation. In other words, they figure how
much would it cost to replicate this structure and then subtract an
amount for the estimated age and depreciation.

This is the most unreliable of all the assessment methods, but it fits
the Costa Rican psychic well because the appraiser can count tangible
items and add them up.

In fact, the same home in Desamparados is not worth the same as its
identical twin overlooking the Pacific in the hills of Dominical. The
one at the beach is worth a whole lot more.

The only method that produces
checkable accuracy is the market data comparison method. Appraisers see
what has sold in the past and use real sales data to estimate the value
of a property being assessed.

This brings up the problem with fraudulent sales reports. Costa Rican
lawyers report something called fiscal value when a property is sold.
That is a low-ball amount given to the municipality for the expressed
purpose of evading taxes. The real sales price is usually much more.
Lawyers base their fees on the real sales price and not the fiscal
value.

Court transcripts have shown that even persons well placed in the
government use this method. Unfortunately, this is fraud.

Monday night Ms. Chinchilla promised to come forth with ways for the
government to better collect the taxes due it. The first stop should be
to check the difference between sales prices and the reported fiscal
price on property transfers and assess back taxes when there are
discrepancies.

And the tax records should be an open book to the public. Neighbors
know what the values are and they know who is cheating. Nosey neighbors
can be a big help to the tax man as would shredding the licenses of
some lawyers who routinely fabricate fake fiscal values.

When President Laura Chinchilla says
her fiscal plan will tax those who have for the benefit of those who do
not, she appears to be a bit disingenuous.

The president's tax plan takes from the rich for the same reason Willy
Sutton gave for robbing banks: “That's where the money is.”

The legislature Wednesday night passed on first reading a disastrous
tax plan that creates a 14 percent value-added tax and extends the levy
to many parts of the economy that have not been taxed in the past.

Somehow Ms. Chinchilla and her aides equate high taxes with
development. Somehow, if the central government takes enough money and
lavishes it on itself, the country will miraculously move from Third
World to First World status, according to this theory.

The extensive tax plan is in the Sala IV constitutional court for a
review. In our opinion, taking 14 percent of a transaction is
confiscatory. To say the Sala IV lacks consistency would be an
understatement. And in this case, we predict a big thumbs up from the
magistrates. Remember, the nation's budget was so tight this year that
they all did not get new government cars.

Anyone who can run an enterprise with a consistent 14 percent net
profit is truly a business genius. There are very few firms that
generate that kind of profit. But the government is

prepared to take its 14 percent
under threat of force, as all governments do.

But not to worry. Ms. Chinchilla and her aides are confident that
low-income earners and the poor will be protected from the impacts of
the tax plan. Presumably they were at lunch when Economics 101 was
offered. The corporations pass on the taxes to human beings. Everybody
will pay the tax. Corporations collect the money.

There are so many negative aspects of this plan that to address each
one would take thousands of words. Among these is the bait-and-switch
tactic to exact taxes from companies that have come here to enjoy the
free zones to make items for export.

Then what should Ms. Chinchilla do? For starters there are 800,000
ounces of gold at the Crucita mine site. Heaven help us if we cut down
a few trees to extract it. And the northern zone might have rich
petroleum deposits. At least that is what a Colorado firm wants to find
out. With gasoline more than $5 a gallon, one would think that the
country's CEO would leap at the chance for homegrown energy.

There is something wrong with a plan that taxes indiscriminately when
there are so many other clear options.

—March
15, 2012

An A.M. Costa Rica editorial

U.S. Embassy
staff seems to be unaccustomed to oversight

Most workers at the U.S. Embassy in
Pavas don't like to be questioned about their actions.

They have made some blunders, but unlike most U.S. government
employees, they do not have to account to anyone outside the closed
embassy world.

The degree of openness generally depends on the standards of who is
working there at the time. There is a lot of turnover, and much of the
continuity is provided by full-time Costa Rican staffers.

Generally the U.S. employees there are not attuned to public relations.
One of the basic rules of public relations is to always respond to
criticism or to crisis situations. We have a situation now that
President Barack Obama is pushing for more tourism.

During his weekly address Saturday, Obama said he wants to make it
easier for visitors to come and spend money in America, according to
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services.

Yet in Pavas a vice consul seems to have canceled a Costa Rican
businessman's U.S. visa without adequate explanation. And the embassy
does not want to explain to the individual or to the press. We would
welcome an explanation as to why the vice consul took this
action. We would have included that information in a Friday
story, if the embassy could have responded quickly. Maybe she took
the correct action. Or maybe she should be shipped out. We have no way
of knowing when the embassy stonewalls.

Embassy workers have a habit of hiding behind the U.S. Privacy Act. But
there is plenty of wiggle room in the privacy act for providing urgent
information to the public. Instead, embassy workers will spend taxpayer
money to create an

embassy newsletter that, we suspect,
will always say nice things about the embassy.

Even though the U.S. government employees are overseas, we think they
should be open to questions, such as why did they buy a $49,000
electric car from a Japanese firm and not a U.S. firm.

And why have they never approached the press seeking help and publicity
for the missing U.S. citizens in Costa Rica? The French ambassador has
done everything short of standing on a soapbox in Parque Central to
generate attention about his missing citizens.

Where does the embassy stand on Costa Rican property fraud that
frequently involves expats as victims?

What actions have the embassy staff taken to raise the issue of
increasing criminality that affects expats. They are big in handing out
money to fight international drug trafficking. How about making some
comments on the revolving justice at Costa Rican courts?

One of the traditions of Anglo-American justice is the right to
confront accusers. We do not think that the U.S. State Department has
instituted an adequate appeals process for persons who are denied visas
or, in the latest case, Óscar Mora who had his visa canceled. A
young vice consul has just a few minutes to make a decision on a visa
application. Have there never been mistakes made? How does a Costa
Rican or U.S. citizen acting on behalf of a Costa Rican find out the
reason for this rejection?

We would like to see the embassy staff address some of these points in
their new, spiffy newsletter.

—
Jan. 23, 2012

An A.M. Costa Rica editorialUrgent changes can help protect expats and their
properties

A news story Friday shined the
spotlight again on the complexities of property ownership here.

The uncertainties of keeping a property represent a drag on the expat
real estate market. An investment in Costa Rica can lead to years of
court battles.

We suggest the following legislative change: Costa Rica must respect
the chain of title and eliminate the concept of the innocent third
party.

Under current law, a land crook can submit the paperwork drawn up by a
crooked notary, gain title and then sell the property to an
unsuspecting third party. The law respects the rights of the third
party and not that of the real owner.

The former owner just has the option of suing the crook.

This is wrong, and many times the so-called innocent third party is a
member of a conspiracy.

The lawyer's union, the Colegio de Abogados, must do a better job of
policing its members.

The whole concept of professionalization of an industry requires strong
internal oversight. In Costa Rica there are lawyers still practicing
who have been convicted or accused of a crime. The colegio should shred
the cédula of a member if convicted of a felony or a delito. If
the lawyer is accused of a crime, the colegio should investigate and
suspend the membership if it appears by a preponderance of evidence
that the lawyer is guilty when the crime involves legal
skullduggery.

If the lawyer is acquitted, the license should be reinstated.

Lawmakers should eliminate laws that allow a criminal to buy

his way out of a crime. There are
lawyers and scammers in preventative detention now who never will be
convicted because they will pay off their accusers for pennies on the
dollar. We see this in other crimes, too, and such a concept is a
license to steal.

Lawmakers and the Colegio de Abogados should combine to enact stronger
penalties for fake cases. Many times, as part of a civil case strategy,
a lawyer will file a criminal case that causes the civil case to come
to a halt. Frequently the criminal case has no merit. But it may be
several years before the criminal case is adjudicated and the civil
case allowed to continue.

We have said in the past that judges should have the power to throw out
a case very early in the criminal process when there really is no
evidence of wrongdoing. And lawyers who file such cases should either
be suspended or thrown out of the colegio.

Finally, judicial police must pay stronger attention to deaths when
someone appears shortly thereafter claiming ownership of the deceased's
property. Many crooks at this moment have inserted their name on
property records in anticipation of the death of an elderly owner. The
crooks suddenly appear with the forged paperwork sometimes even as the
funeral is taking place.

Expats need to realize that for every foreigner who is the victim of
property fraud, there are dozens of Costa Rican victims, and many do
not have the knowledge or the funds to fight the scammers.

Garland Baker, A.M. Costa Rica's contributor, has urged property owners
to create mortgage certificates as a surefire way to protect their
holdings. We refer readers to that news story HERE!

—
Jan. 16, 2012

An A.M. Costa
Rica editorial (sort of)
Embassy's electric car is culmination of long U.S. project

By the A.M. Costa Rica humor staff

The search for the perfect embassy vehicle began decades

Early testing

ago
with a secret State Department project in the desert of Arizona. This
is the effort that culminated in the U.S Embassy's recent purchase here
of a Japanese electric car.

Alas, the Arizona project failed because most diplomats weigh more than
24 pounds and are

not furry. They also have an aversion to running into canyon walls or
Mack trucks.

Benjamin Franklin's misadventure with a sedan chair while

Too much CO2

on a
diplomatic mission to France also short circuited that method.

The plan was to develop a means of transportation that was secure,
reliable and economical. Hence the tuk tuks that were a mainstay of the
diplomate fleet for years in Asia.

Unfortunately the State Department's rush to oneness with nature
suffered several setbacks with the arrival of a procession of cowboy
mentalities in Washington, D.C. A white Lincoln convertible is not
exactly considered ecofriendly these days.

A vintage tuk tuk

Still being considered

Roller skating is out

Recent
philosophical changes in the State Department caused the rejection of
some possible alternatives. Roller skates, while generating exercise
also generate the dreaded carbon dioxide from the lungs of the users.
For the same reason horses were again rejected, even when used with
carriages.

The search for green vehicular transportation became more

intense with the arrival of a similarly minded administration on the
Potomac. There was a presumed heavy reliance on Al Gore's slide show
that denigrated breathing.

Communist taxis

The reliable and diminutive Coco taxis in Havana, Cuba, were rejected
outright because they are, well, Communist.

So the U.S. Embassy turned to electric vehicles, presumably to

be accompanied by an escort of black Chevrolet Suburbans. The current
one is a $43,000 fully electric Mitsubishi MIEV. Still, some budget
conscious types at Foggy Bottom Centro are still evaluating the U.S.
road-approved electric tuk tuk.

And the real tight-fisted ones have not given up on their push for a
pedicab. Yet these still produce that dreaded carbon dioxide.

Still in the works is a secret U.S. Navy project to teleport diplomats
to their various cocktail parties and receptions so there will be no
need for heavily armored tuk tuks.

An
A.M. Costa Rica editorial
They were not against taxes, just against paying it themselves

Even those who believe in a
broad-based democracy would have been chilled by the attitude of
anti-tax marchers Tuesday.

The truth is that the marchers were not against taxes. They just were
against taxes levied on them. They want those they consider rich and
corporations to pay the taxes. Of course these are many of the same
people who have received money and benefits from a string of
governments that brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy so they
could buy votes.

Clearly basic economics has not been taught adequately in the Costa
Rican school system. The marchers Tuesday seemed to be blissfully
unaware that corporations and high-income earners already pay more than
their fair share and that they provide jobs, products and economic
security.

The attitude is that those who have more should pay more. This is the
concept in many developed nations where the rich are content to pay
higher taxes so the governments can provide bread and circuses for the
masses. Socialism magnifies this inequality.

Costa Rica's problems have their origins in many of the attitudes and
actions that are similar to those in many other countries. The central
government simply spent a lot more than it earned.

The special case of Costa Rica includes massive tax evasion. The
mechanisms for tax collecting are not up to the job despite recent
efforts to improve.

Those who evade know that they never
will see the inside of a courtroom because this is a society that
cannot even prosecute the fraudsters and street crooks.

The courts are dysfunctional.

There also is the attitude here that the personal world ends at the
household door. Costa Ricans do not rush to fix broken sidewalks or
crumbling streets. That is the job of the government or at least
someone else. And this is the same attitude that influenced those who
took to the streets Tuesday.
Let someone else do it, and let someone else pay for it.

But at least the marchers can see through the dissembling of
politicians who say the proposed taxes are a reform or just another
percent on the sales tax.

The proposal is not reform. It is just more taxes which the government
will lavish on the well-connected. And rather than just another percent
on the already confiscatory 13 percent sales tax, the 14 percent
value-added tax is far broader.

Central government leaders appear to have ducked basic economic
classes, too. The proposal will not bring in the $500 million they
suppose. Citizens and expats alike will take steps to minimize their
tax exposure. Evasion will flourish.

And creativity will reign as it did when the United States had a 91
percent marginal tax rate.

—
Dec. 15, 2011

The U.S. always has been able to come
back from disaster

By
Jay Brodelleditor of the A.M. Costa Rica
staff

Today is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Most who
heard the startling news in the United States that Sunday afternoon are
dead. Some died as a direct result of the sneak attack by the forces of
Imperial Japan.

Pearl Harbor is one of those mental milestones by which people reckon
their lives. Others include the start of the Korean war, the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the killing of his brother,
the explosion of the Challenger spacecraft and the more recent
terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

History proved Franklin Roosevelt wrong. Dec. 7 did not live in infamy.
Today the United States and Japan are close allies. Costa Rica's
president, Laura Chinchilla Miranda, happens to be in Japan this week
on a state visit. And many U.S. school children have no clue about what
happened 70 years ago.

What we are not remembering today is the destruction of the world by
nuclear weapons. Japan is the only country that suffered nuclear blows
delivered in anger. Some say this was overkill. The thousands of U.S.
servicemen and women who were poised for the invasion of Japan rejoiced.

The miracle is that through strength the United States avoided mutual
nuclear destruction with the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of World
War II, the stage seemed to be set for a nuclear war. The United States
never wanted this. Fortunately the might of the United States and its
European allies dissuaded Soviet leaders from making a big mistake.

The Japanese general staff thought that a strategic blow against the
U.S. Pacific fleet would cause the western giant to retreat and lick it
wounds. Big mistake.

Official U.S. Navy photo

Navy officials survey the
wreckage of the U.S.S. Arizona.

If there is a lesson here it is that even when it is down, the United
States can rally and come back. This is relevant today with the damaged
U.S. economy, the soaring federal deficit and policies that ship jobs
overseas.

Some world leaders have turned their attention to China, and some even
cede the 21st century to China. Big mistake.

Even as we remember the deaths and destruction at Pearl Harbor and the
multitude of other bloody disasters, the United States is on the road
back to its rightful place in the world. Given a level field, the
United States can out produce any country in both food and goods.

Years of faulty leadership have let the borders collapse and have
driven successful companies to seek havens in other lands. The time has
come to reverse this. This is a change we can believe in.

—
Dec. 7, 2011

An
A.M. Costa Rica editorial
Maybe now the poor magistrates will have to hike to work?

The discussion and final vote over
next year's national budget was very revealing.

Among the items cut was one for 356 million colons, about $712,000. The
money was supposed to purchase new cars for magistrates in the Corte
Suprema de Justicia.

We wonder why that was in the budget in the first place. Magistrates
are supposed to sit around a table deciding legal cases. They ought to
drive to and from work in their own vehicles.

Dare we say the same about legislative deputies? Some readers have
raised this point. Why is the government paying for vehicles for
legislative deputies? They also get an allocation for fuel. Can they
not afford their own vehicles?

The problem is not automobiles. The problem is a government

that has no respect for the
taxpayer. We have noted before that government offices are in luxury
structures. Some are only half filled.

A visitor can tell a lot about the local society just by looking at who
has the best buildings. Here the banks and the government have fancy
surroundings while much of the population live in less than adequate
circumstances.

Now President Laura Chinchilla Miranda has made a point to say that her
tax plan will take from those who have to give to those who have not.
This is a modern version of “From each according to his ability, to
each according to his need,” as popularized by Karl Marx.

We wonder how many more public officials need new cars.

—
Nov. 29, 2011

An
A.M. Costa Rica editorial
If Crucitas allegation is true, prosecution is the only course

This newspaper has supported
consistently the Las Crucitas mine.

We did that not because we love open pit gold mines, but because
Industrias Infinito S.A. already had a permit when this newspaper
arrived on the scene.

Costa Rica has to live up to its promises, even though that seems not
to be the tradition. We were shocked when President Able Pachco in his
first press conference said that he was stopping work on all the open
pit gold mines. No public official has the power to take something from
someone else without the process of law. In this case, Pacheco sought
to take a concession that already had been granted from two separate
gold mines.

Open pit mining is preferable to having workers go down miles into hard
rock and run the risk of injury or death. We also thought that Costa
Rica could use the money generated by

mining a million ounces of gold. And
we thought that residents of Cutris de San Carlos could use a major
industry, if only for about 20 years.

But there is no room in Costa Rica for corrupt company officials. If
the allegations are true that Infinito officials welcomed a magistrate
who was bringing a leaked copy of the draft of a high court decision,
there is only one just action. And that is criminal prosecution.

We do not know now if the allegation is correct. But if it is, the
investigation and prosecution should go up the corporate food chain to
Infinito's parent company in Canada.

And it would seem to us that an illegal action of this magnitude would
void any attempts by Infinito and its Canadian owner to seek a
favorable international arbitration ruling if Costa Rica dumps the
entire project.

—
Nov. 16, 2011

An
A.M. Costa Rica editorial
How about some belt-tightening before demanding new taxes?

The Laura Chinchilla Miranda
administration has done little to stop the increase in the national
deficit and the country's budget.

The Ministerio de Hacienda defends the lack of action by saying that
the national budget is rigid. The administration has reduced the growth
of the budget from 24 percent a year to 13 percent in 2011, the
ministry reports. Next year, the proposed budget only increases less
than 10 percent, it said.

The administration is putting all its hopes on passage of a new tax law
that will suck more money from the productive sector to grow the
budget.

Prior to any major tax proposal, Ms. Chinchilla should have taken some
strong steps to increase current government income and reduce expenses.
Of course, there has been an effort to increase collection and crack
down on evasion. But that amounts to peanuts in the overall scheme.

With any tax increase, expats and those in the tourism business will
see a negative effect. The country already sees a decrease in tourism,
and not all of that is due to economic conditions elsewhere. Part of
the problem is increases in taxes and increases in tourism industry
pricing, in part because of government demands from employers.

Here are some suggestions for the president:

• Any pension higher than $2,500 a month should be cut to that amount.
There are plenty of public employees who have received very generous
retirements from the government. Some are perhaps too generous. Ms.
Chinchilla says she seeks to take from those who have and give to those
who do not. This is a start. Fully 40 percent of the national budget is
salaries and pensions, said Hacienda.

• The practice of giving public employees an aguinaldo every Christmas
should be stopped. Making employers pay bonuses without regard for
production is silly. Distributing such bonuses for work not done in the
public sector is, as Ebenezer Scrooge would say, “a poor excuse from
picking a man's pocket every 25th of December.” Perhaps there should be
a show of solidarity by public employees who would surrender this
year's bonus in the interest of fiscal stability. Fat chance.

• The administration should start selling off some of the large
buildings that are under utilized. Do officials even know what they
own? The landscape shows that the Costa Rican economy is dominated by
banks and public entities. Some of the finest buildings are public.
Does the Contraloría de la República really need that
gigantic tower in Sabana Sur? How much of

the La Uruca building of the
Instituto Costarricense de Turismo really is in use?

• The administration should immediately seek a buyer for the Refinadora
Costarricense de Petróleo S.A., the fuel monopoly. Some big oil
company or perhaps the Chinese probably would be interested in the
facilities but probably not the luxury building in Barrio Tournon. That
could be sold separately.

• Dare we suggest that the country should sell off the national stadium
that the Chinese were nice enough to construct? If you can't keep a
country out of the red, how can you be expected to make a profit from a
stadium?

• Some Costa Rican laws that involve payments to the government specify
where the cash should go. The Patronato Nacional de la Infancia, for
example, gets a piece of the traffic speeding fines. There is no
rationale for this except that some
lawmaker sought to reward the children's agency. Hardly any of the
speeding fines go to the central government. This law and others like
it should be changed so that all money goes to the central treasury and
is allocated by the central government based on needs and budget. The
slush funds at the various agencies should be eliminated. A $15 entry
tax on tourists may have generated $4.7 million this year based on the
arrival of 312,659 tourists by air, but that cash goes to the tourism
institute which does what with it?

• This newspaper already has suggested that the government inventory
the land it holds and consider marketing excess.

• The government should consider a management plan for its vast
holdings of public lands. Instead of treating trees as sacred, the
valuable hardwood should be harvested to provide room for growth of
younger trees. Concessions to do that would give a boost to the public
income. Otherwise, trees just get old, die and fall down.

• This newspaper already has suggested that the Chinchilla
administration get fully behind plans by a Canadian firm to mine gold
in northern Costa Rica and plans by a Denver firm to explore for oil
and gas. The severance tax and commissions on both commodities could be
ample.

This newspaper's opinion is that the Chinchilla administration should
take immediate steps to lower its expenses and seek funds from
resources before it seeks a single colon more from the working public.
And Ms. Chinchilla has been around in public life far too long to
complain that the financial problems are something she inherited. The
problems are what she helped create in her years of public offices.

—
Nov. 7, 2011

An
A.M. Costa Rica editorial
Getting soft on drug possession is a serious error by Chavarría

The fiscal general has made public
what has been practiced for nearly a year by the nation's prosecutors.
Possession of small amounts of drugs will not result in criminal
prosecution.

The fiscal general, Jorge Chavarría, said this was a financial
decision to keep an estimated 125,000 cases a year out of the court
system. He said that in the past, a case was opened and then there was
additional paperwork in getting a judge to close the case. Now
prosecutors will just not open the case in the first place.

The revelation was hailed by those who seek legalization of what are
now considered illegal substances. Others said that the fiscal
general's position amounts to legalization of all sorts of drugs in
Costa Rica.

The policy does not just include marijuana, but all types of drugs, as
long as the quantity does not suggest the potential for resale.

Fiscal General Chavarría may be content to live in a drugocracy,
but A.M. Costa Rica is not. It would be helpful if prosecutors and
judges would do their job instead of looking for loopholes. The purpose
of drug laws is to reduce consumption. The result of the fiscal
general's policy is encouragement.

If one is photographed speeding on
the highway, the potential fine, although being litigated now, is
gigantic, some $600. Costa Rican law also provides for stiff fines for
drug possession. That was rarely enforced. Now the law will not be
enforced at all.

Some expats who consider Costa Rica as their own personal adult
disneyland may hail the position of the fiscal general. That is
short-sighted. The proliferation of drugs means the continued
proliferation of robberies, thefts, burglaries and all the other
situations that affect foreigners.

One cannot believe that police officers will continue to risk their
life to stem the drug trade if many of those they detain walk.

And one cannot have drugs unless there has been a sale at some point in
the chain of possession. That is a delito
or felony here.

In addition, the idea that a chief prosecutor can overturn the nation's
laws on a whim is troubling. What next? A little bit of bribery will be
OK? How about whacking the wife around a bit but not enough for a
felony? Maybe a pass for stealing just older cars? Or maybe these are
the fiscal general's rules now. Who knows?

—
Oct. 24, 2011

Costa Rica is not an innocent when it
comes to drug trafficking

President Laura Chinchilla sees
Costa Rica as an innocent party between South American drug producers
and the United States, which she characterizes as the major consumer.

This was a diplomatic way to tell the U.N. General Assembly “It's not
our fault.” That could be Costa Rica's national slogan, and what
Ms. Chinchilla wants is money. Not that the United States is not
already pouring money into this country to fight the drug trade.
Witness the multi-million dollar police mansion planned for the
Interamericana highway in south Costa Rica or the two aluminum patrol
boats recently given the Guardacostas.

Perhaps the president has lost touch with what is going on in the
country, but many Costa Ricans have actively and gladly joined in the
drug trade. And they are not just serving the United States. The
arrests Thursday involved a cocaine shipment to Spain. Drug mules
frequently are picked up at Juan Santamaría airport headed to
Europe with a hidden stash. Many more get through.

The last big haul in the Pacific involved a boat that was part of the
Puntarenas fishing fleet. Some of the crew were Costa Rican.

Time after time, drug investigators
make arrests involving the shipment by land of drugs to the north. But
they also make large hauls of crack cocaine. Children as young as 8
have been visible for years in south San José smoking crack
pipes. At certain corners in San José one can find a drug
supermarket.

The point is that Costa Rica is not just a victim but that many
citizens here are active participants in the drug trade. And there are
many drug users in Costa Rica, perhaps some not very distant from Ms.
Chinchilla.

This newspaper has urged a serious and consistent program of
preventative drug testing not just of the police, but also of other
members of the public administration. In the past we have seen
politicians and others go down as drug traffickers. So this is not just
a problem of fishermen in Puntarenas.

Ms. Chinchilla has spent many years in public administration here. She
has been a security minister, a minister of justice, a first vice
president and now a president. One would hope that she devised some
plan to stifle the drug traffic.

But we have yet to hear it other than asking for money.

—
Sept. 26, 2011

An
A.M. Costa Rica editorial
Tax-loving president and lawmakers off on the wrong track

President Laura Chinchilla's push
for more taxes stems from her belief that government has to be the
nanny. In her independence day speech she said that Costa Rica's level
of taxes is below its level of development.

The idea that is current in liberal circles is that developed countries
should have high taxes. Sweden, for example, takes 47.9 percent of its
gross domestic product in taxes. Denmark takes 49 percent. Both numbers
come from annual indexes compiled by the Heritage Foundation.

Costa Rica is listed as taking 15.6 percent of the domestic product.
Ms. Chinchilla would like to take 20 percent.

Juan Carlos Mendoza Garcia, president of the Asamblea Legislativa, also
is a member of Acción Ciudadana, He is fond of saying that a tax
plan should take from those who have for those who do not.

Ms. Chinchilla's administration appears to have reached an accord with
the opposition parties that control the legislature to push through
revised tax legislation. Presumably Carlos Ricardo Benavides, the
minister of the Presidencia, had a large role in this agreement. He's
the guy who created the new tourist tax for the benefit of the
Instituto Costarricense de Turismo. We can see the impact of that.

None of these individuals appreciates the fact that you get less of
whatever it is that you tax.

Two of the most robust economies in the world defy Ms. Chinchilla's
point of view. Hong Kong takes 13 percent of its

gross domestic product. Singapore
takes 14.2 percent. Both figures are again from the Heritage index.
Meanwhile, Danish professionals are on record for not wanting to work
in their own country due to the high taxation.

Costa Rica's problem is not the level of taxation. It is the sprawling,
inefficient bureaucracy that seems to be designed to provide jobs for
the politically favored instead of doing anything for the country. Ms.
Chinchilla has done little to reduce the expenses of the central
government.

What is needed is a complete overhaul of how Costa Rica is run. There
are far too many government employees communicating on Facebook and
Twitter all day and not doing any thing. We would ask minsters to take
a look at the computer server reports from machines under their
jurisdictions. These tell the tale.

The Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social is shaking up its employees
after officials read in La Nación that the number of staffers
calling in sick rose dramatically during major soccer games. Then there
were the teachers who got two days off to attend a professional union
convention, but few showed up.

We strongly object to Ms. Chinchilla's idea that the role of government
is to use its redistributive function to insure the welfare and
security of citizens in the future. The role of government
is to get out of the way as much as possible to let the economy
function. Mr. Mendoza wants to take from those who are working and
earning money and give it to those who are not. Class warfare may be
good for votes, but it is not good for the economy.

—
Sept. 19, 2011

An
A.M. Costa Rica editorial
How about just making public records available to the public?

There was a crowd at the Registro
Nacional in Zapote Monday. Documents that are supposed to be available
online are not because the Registro shut down its system.

The Registro did so because the Sala IV constitutional court forbade it
from charging for documents while an appeal is pending. A lawyer
objects to paying for the online documents.

There is a lot of sense behind this appeal, although the lawyer
involved probably has mostly money on his mind.

Public documents should be available freely to the public. That is a
basic foundation of a democracy. Costa Rica has an elaborate system of
documentation, notaries and certifications, all designed to make
lawyers money.

Someone who runs a company is powerless unless he or she holds a
current personaría juridica. This document, which may be good
for 15 days or 30 days, depending on the source, assures anyone in
business that the individual named in the document has the right to act
for the company.

Never mind that this information should be available on the Internet.
Costa Rica custom usually requires a lawyer with notary credentials to
draw up the document to guarantee it is correct. And where does the
information originate? In a lawyer's section of the Registro Web site.
It's copy-and-paste time that generates 10,000 colons or about $20 for
the lawyer.

For awhile, a company manager simply had to purchase a copy online from
the Registro for nearly 3,000 colons, about $6. This is the system that
has been frozen. The Registro server allowed interested parties to
double check the validity of the

document by just entering a few
numbers.

We wonder why the entire data base is just not made public so that
inquiring minds can find out who has the power to act for a company
simply by checking the Registro data base. No paper documents. No
lawyers. No notaries.

We say the same about court cases. Most are private affairs from which
the public is excluded. When someone is arrested, the bulk of the
information is strained through judicial public relations
professionals. Many arrests simply are not reported. Reporters do
not have the right to look at case files in the courts. That right is
reserved for lawyers.

Consequently, many people are labeled crooks in the press and are later
released. There is one case of a man held out as a crook in a press
conference by high judicial officials. He later was acquitted. There
was no press conference then. He can only salvage his reputation by
calling on newspapers to take the initiative and report his acquittal.

The Internet lives forever, and so do news stories. The system would be
far more equitable here if reporters had more access to preliminary
court hearings and case filings. But not just reporters. Any citizen
should be able to leaf through court files and search court documents
online.

Article 30 of the Costa Rican Constitution seems to establish this
right. But in practice, that's just so much smoke.

Of course, prosecutors, crooks and others would prefer that all be
handled in the dark.

—
Sept. 6, 2011

An A.M. Costa Rica editorial
President Chinchilla delivers a troubling speech in Nicoya

President Laura Chinchilla really
led with her chin Monday when she told an audience in Nicoya that if
they wanted something done they should talk to legislators.

Ms. Chinchilla's point was that opposition party members control the
Asamblea Legislativa and her plans for major tax increases, an annual
tax on corporations and approval of multi-million-dollar international
loans are moving too slowly through the process.

The president forgot to mention that her party controlled the
legislature the previous year. The problem is not who is in control.
The problem is the lack of viable proposals coming from Casa
Presidencial. Her initial tax plan was so greedy that even members of
her own party winced.

But that is only part of the problem as polls show support for the
president is low. Ms. Chinchilla ran on a platform of firmness, and
voters expected her to take strong action against crime and some other
maladies. Instead, she turned the job of making a plan over to a United
Nations agency.

The result was not unexpected. The agency, the Programa de las Naciones
Unidas para el Desarrollo, produced an abstract document that resembled
a college term paper on crime. Even a leading television reporter
characterized the document as "Blah, blah, blah."

Basically what Ms. Chinchilla said Monday was a variation on the common
Costa Rican slogan: "It's not my fault."

Ms. Chinchilla has held many high
offices before becoming president. She was a minister of security, a
minister of Justicia and a vice president. That's pretty good training
for a president, particularly in times when a crime wave is sweeping
the nation.

The most decisive action she has taken against crime recently was to
instruct government agencies to put a slogan on all their press
releases: Constuimos un país seguro. "We are building a
secure country."

Opposition lawmakers were uniform Tuesday is saying that the president
was ducking her responsibility and trying to put the blame on them.

But perhaps the most unsettling comment the president made in her
speech in Nicoya was when she told the crowd that they would pay none
of the taxes she proposes. Only those with a lot of money would pay,
she said. But the president's own tax plan levies taxes on individuals
who earn more than 2,890,000 colons a year, although there are other
deductions and loopholes. That is just $5,780. Even someone working at
the mid range of the minimum salary would reach that level in a year.
Any money after 241,000 colons a year is taxable. And in Nicoya there
were plenty of well-heeled ranchers and farmers in the audience.

But even more troubling was the president's effort to generate class
envy.

President Laura Chinchilla told
Guanacaste residents Monday to take their demands to legislators
because opposition lawmakers now control the Asamblea Legislativa.

The president showed some frustration during her speech at the annual
Anexión del Partido de Nicoya celebration, in part because she
was met by about 400 protesters with various complaints. In addition to
a stalled proposal for a national park, the president cited the tax
reform plan that is being considered in the legislature. The plan would
generate about $1 billion in new income for the government.

But there is one action the president could take right now to raise
funds.

The president's plan would increase the property transfer tax from 1.5
percent to 3 percent, but the government has been ineffective in
collecting the current levy.

There exists a tradition among lawyers and and property purchasers to
establish a sales price for fiscal purposes. This

amount is much lower than the actual
sales price. This really amount to false statements to tax authorities.
The transfer tax is paid on the lower amount even though the seller
gets the real purchase price.

This is tax evasion of the most bold sort because a little
investigation can usually determine the real sales price. After all, a
lot of the properties have been advertised and the amount clearly
stated.

In some cases this fiscal price is a really total effort at evasion.
The stated price may be just 10 percent of the actual sale. So on a
$200,000 sales, the government collects $300 instead of $3,000. The
lawyers, however, collect their fee on the actual sales price. Some of
them produce two invoices for their clients, one with the fake price
and the second with their full fee based on the actual price.

This clearly is fraud. And it would not take a lot of effort to review
all the property transactions for the last five years.

For a country that prides itself on
respect for human rights, the concept of innocent until proven guilty
is frequently overlooked.

Depending on the crime, a suspect may be tossed into the general prison
population for months, even years, without the chance to present a
defense. On the other hand, the flagrancia courts convict and sentence
without the suspect having sufficient time to mount a defense.

The issue of excessive preventative detention, came to light when
Kathya Jiménez Fernández, a criminal judge, ordered that
two Mexican drug suspects be placed in home detention and liberated
from prison. The decision created a firestorm among police officials
and potential neighbors. The judge correctly reasoned that the men had
spent seven months in prison without significant action by prosecutors.

Costa Rica does not have a speedy trial law, and some of these cases
drag on for years only to have the jailed suspect found innocent.
Sometimes police and prosecutors are happy that suspects are confined
for lengthy periods pre-trial. They figure that the fickle Costa Rican
courts might find the suspect innocent, but he or she will at least
have served some time. Pre-trial detention should be reserved for cases
where there is a possibility of danger to the public from the suspect.

A case in point is the hotel guard with the last name of Guevara, who
is accused of murder for shooting a 16-year-old U.S. tourist by
accident in La Fortuna last week. Prosecutors at first sought a year of
preventative detention. A judge ordered six months. This case is not
rocket science. The man is guilty of having an unlicensed gun and
working without residency. But he is not guilty of murder, as
prosecutors allege. A trial could easily be held in a month or two.
Instead the man will languish in prison for months while prosecutors
handle other cases. Out of sight is out of mind.

Another human rights violation is mixing the pre-trial prison
population with the convicted felons. Pre-trial inmates deserve special
treatment if one assumes they are innocent until proved guilty.

We are reminded of the case of Roger Crouse, the Playa del Coco bar
owner who was charged with murder for shooting a man who attacked him
with a knife. He was not a paragon of virtue, but the case appeared cut
and dried. The local bad guy

created a scene, and police had to
detain and confine him. A few hours later they inexplicably released
the man, who told them he was going to return to the bar and kill
Crouse. He tried. He found another knife. Crouse had a gun.

So investigators arrested Crouse, who spent a year in jail before there
was a trial. His bar was sacked by locals. His limo business was
vandalized into junk. He periodically would call reporters to talk
about his latest robbery by fellow inmates.

We think that Crouse would have been convicted without the continual
carping by A.M. Costa Rica reporters. Why? There would have been a
significant civil settlement in favor of the family of the dead man.
Prosecutors were trying to wear him down.

Another case in point is the man, Carlos Pascall, who was detained in
Limón last week in a money laundering investigation. In a
made-for-television raid, police broke down his front door and smashed
through an interior door while Pascall, dressed only in underpants,
calmly watched from a second-floor balcony. They threw him to the floor
to cuff him. He was ordered jailed for investigation.

This is a case prosecutors have been following since 2004. Is
there any reason to put Pascall in jail before a trial? He has millions
in investments here as well as being the president of a first division
soccer team.

Luis Milanes, who admits his investors lost some $200 million when he
fled in 2002, returned to Costa Rican in 2009 and spent just one day in
jail. He has been free to run his casino businesses for two years.

Why is there such a difference in the treatment of these men? We think
Pascal should be freed before trial, and so should Milanes. But we
think the trial should be completed in a couple of months, not a couple
of years.

On the other hand, once someone is convicted, there should be strong
consideration of prison even though appeals have been filed in the
case. Monday the Judicial Investigating Organization released the
photos of 12 men who have been convicted of such crimes as murder,
aggravated robbery and rape. They were convicted and allowed to wander
off while an appeal was heard. This is wacky.

June 7, 2011

Here is a career-ending case for the sob sisters in the
judiciary

There is another custody battle
brewing, and Costa Rican judicial officials who like to meddle in such
U.S. cases could face the decision of their lives.

The judicial officials unerringly seem to favor the women in a custody
battle and have disregarded international treaties that say the court
of initial jurisdiction is the place where custody should be decided.
Usually the court of initial jurisdiction is in the United States.

But Tico judges and judicial officials are quick to protect a fleeing
mother from the U.S. justice system and award her refugee status here,
usually without making any investigation.

But now comes a case with two mothers. And one is lesbian and the other
is a former lesbian.

At the center of the case is a 9-year-old girl, who was born via
artificial insemination.

The biological mother is Lisa Miller
who fled the United States to avoid turning over custody to her former
lover, Vermont homosexual rights activist Janet Jenkins. Ms. Miller
fled to Central America two years ago, and has been reported to be in
Nicaragua. There is a possibility that she has entered Costa Rica.

A judge gave custody to Ms. Jenkins because Ms. Miller moved from
Vermont and denied Ms. Jenkins visitations.

The case is further wrapped up in evangelical Christianity, gay rights
and a host of sub-issues.

If some ladies in the judiciary want to be world arbitrators of
parental rights, we would be happy to provide Ms. Miller telephone
money, Such a case would remind the ladies of the judiciary why laws
and treaties were designed to trump emotions.

— April 25, 2011

An A.M. Costa Rica editorial
True freedom includes having the right to gamble online

Government-sponsored gambling is
centuries old. Still, politicians cannot come to grips with the
industry. When New York authorized a state lottery in 1967, cautious
lawmakers required lottery players to purchase their tickets at a local
bank. Eventually that dumb rule vanished, and in many states lottery
tickets are available at many retail outlets.

Online gambling seems to be following that same erratic course.
Revelations of a U.S. government crackdown on the online poker industry
came Friday. Meanwhile, the U.S. District of Columbia, the seat of the
federal government, has authorized online gambling for its residents
this year. Specifics are in the works.

Three other states, Nevada, Iowa and New Jersey, also are flirting with
online gambling. Yet in 2006 the U.S. federal government passed a law
that has been used to punish Costa Rican gambling sites and those
executives here who publicly supported unrestricted online gambling.

There are many good reasons not to allow gambling, just as there are
good reasons to forbid cigarettes, alcohol and Big Macs. Frankly this
newspaper would welcome a well-regulated online gambling industry based
in the United States where participants probably would get a fair shake.

We have not received any complaints about Absolute Poker, the

Pavas-based firm that figured
in the federal indictments announced Friday. But we have fielded
international complaints about other online gambling sites here who
seem to fail to pay big winners. Costa Rica, being what it is,
international gamblers have no recourse to collect their funds.

District of Columbia officials expect its local online activities to
bring in more than $10 million a year. That is peanuts compared to the
billions at play in the world.

And if United States officials were consistent, they would see large
financial benefits for uniform, reasonable online legislation. The
online gambling industry already is big business there. Those in the
Land of the Free should recognize that true freedom includes the right
to lose one's shirt in an online poker game.

Those detained Friday in the current U.S. investigation face the most
serious charges because they sought to circumvent the prohibition on
U.S. gamblers posting money to their poker accounts. They face money
laundering, bank fraud and conspiracy allegations. These charges stem
from the roadblocks U.S. federal officials erected in opposition to
what is a legal business here and in the other jurisdictions where the
other two poker sites are located.

April 18, 2011

An A.M. Costa Rica
editorialThe time has come to crack down on juvenile
criminals

A wave of juvenile crime is seeping
the country, and the existing laws are insufficient to handle the
problem.

The entire Costa Rican penal code is base on redemption, but some
criminals cannot be redeemed. That goes for young criminals.

Someone under the age of 18 who commits premeditated murder probably
will not serve more than five or six years in prison. They should be
put away for a long, long time.

The Costa Rican juvenile code should be changed to make 14 years the
limit for a juvenile criminal. Those older than that go to adult court
and face adult penalties. The adult penalties are weak enough.

We would prefer to see imprisonment without possibility of parole in
some cases. But that is too much to expect with the current touchie
feelie administration and legislature.

But subjecting persons 14 years to adult penalties would be a start.

We have had three youngsters detained in the last few days for the
murder of a taxi driver. That was in Tejarcillos de Alajuelita
Sunday night, and they were trying to rob the man, identified by the
last names of Ramírez Gutiérrez.

Another youngster of 16 is accused of shooting down a mother

earlier in the week as she walked
with her two daughters. Why? Because the woman filed a complaint
against the suspect's mother.

Then there are the pair of robbery suspects who are charged with
putting a foot-long slash in the stomach of a schoolboy Wednesday.

We think society would be well served if none of these youngsters who
are between 15 and 17 years of age do not see liberty for 30 years each.

We may never know what happens to these suspects. The juvenile court is
closed, and the only reports are filtered through the Poder Judicial
press office. Even after conviction, a young criminal may not serve the
time a judge has specified. That's true of adult criminals, too.

Youngsters are being encouraged to really bad behavior by the
television cop shows. But we also think that adult criminals are using
youngsters for bloody jobs because they correctly feel the kids are
immune to prosecution.

If they are killing people at 16, what will they be doing at 25?

We urge that they be so treated that they continue to contemplate their
crime from behind bars at 25 and for many years later.

Each day someone complains via e-mail that the
newspages are from yesterday or the day before. A.M. Costa Rica
staffers check every page and every link when the newspaper is made
available at 2 a.m. each weekday.

So the problem is with the browser in each reader's computer.
Particularly when the connection with the server is slow, a
computer will look to the latest page in its internal memory and serve
up that page.

Readers should refresh the page and, if necessary, dump the cache of
their computer, if this problem persists. Readers in Costa Rica have
this problem frequently because the local Internet provider has
continual problems.

Searching

The A.M. Costa Rica search page has a
list of all previous editions by date and a space to search for
specific words and phrases. The search will return links to archived
pages.

Newspages

A typical edition will consist of a front page and four
other newspages. Each of these pages can be reached by links near the
top and bottom of the pages.

Please keep the letter at a reasonable length
and with focus on the main theme.

An A.M. Costa Rica editorial
Apparently, international treaties are just suggestions, too

How do Costa Rican officials justify
ignoring the Hague Convention on Child Abduction?

Time after time runaway moms from the United States come here with a
child and try to get the courts here to block U.S. arrest warrants and
judicial orders to return the child.

The latest case is that of Trina Atwell and her 2-plus-year-old
daughter Emily. Ms. Atwell is wanted for child abduction, and a court
in Green County, Missouri, has awarded the biological father full
custody. She claims she fled violence and drug abuse. He denies that.

A.M. Costa Rica is in no position to determine who is telling the
truth. But neither are Costa Rican officials. The international treaty
says that jurisdiction rests with the Green County judge. There the
evidence exists to adjudicate the case and confirm or award custody. A
complicating factor is that Ms. Atwell was married to a Costa Rican
when she had the child.

One would think that Ms. Atwell would want to go back there and reopen
the case, at least to be with the other daughter she left behind.

One would think that Costa Rican
judicial officials would want to take immediate and decisive action to
comply with the Hague Convention if only to avoid another long court
case in an overwhelmed judicial system.

Ms. Atwell is seeking refugee status for herself and her child.

Of course, this is a strategic play because no right-minded individual
would compare the lumbering, flawed judicial system here to the one in
the United States.

But we also wonder if she does not have legal custody how can she apply
for refugee status on behalf of her daughter?

Of course, in Costa Rica mothers are sacred. Whenever there is an
international custody dispute, women gather at the judicial complex to
support uncritically the mother of the hour.

Some supporters of Roy Koyama, Emily's father, have suggested that the
United States freeze international aid from Costa Rica. A.M. Costa Rica
will not go that far, but the lack of response and action by the U.S.
Embassy make one wonder.

Wednesday a news story about a
Florida court case illustrated some deficiencies in Costa Rican law.

We have no way of knowing who will prevail in the Florida case. A
former businessman here alleged in his suit that Costa Rican lawyers
conspired with some of his investors to bring false criminal charges
against him and that these continuing efforts destroyed the company he
ran here.

However, in bringing the case, the lawyer, Craig A. Brand, pointed out
some serious problems with Costa Rican law.

Anyone is vulnerable to private court cases because any lawyer can file
such a case, including criminal cases. Frequently lawyers will file a
private criminal case even while they know the case is a tissue of
lies. The purpose is strategic.

Brand said lawyers did so to him in an effort to extort money. Perhaps
they did. But we know of other situations when such cases have been
filed to stop civil cases when it appears one side would lose.

This is a typical and reprehensible technique used here. The real
problem is that there is no mechanism in place for judges

to throw out weak or fake
cases at an early stage. Such actions usually have to go to a full
trial, causing great expense to the victimized individuals and
frequently delaying justice.

The second aspect illustrated by the Brand case is that a judge can
issue a prohibition against someone leaving the country and the subject
of the order does not find out until he or she is at the airport. No
one should be the subject of a secret judicial order. Each person
should have the right to contest the order quickly before a judge. That
means the the judiciary should notify the person who is the subject of
the impedimento de salida order.
Such orders should not languish in secret in the immigration computer
system for months or years until someone has invested money in air
tickets and travel.

Again, these orders can be used strategically to bring pressure on an
individual whether for legal or private reasons. The orders frequently
are placed against foreign expats because opposing lawyers can argue
that the individual might flee.

Both of these issues are grossly unfair. The sad part is that everyone
in the judiciary and in government knows it and they do nothing to
remedy the unfairness.

— Feb. 10, 2011

An A.M. Costa Rica editorial
Time has come to end disgusting practice of shark finning

Costa Rica needs to live up to its
environmentalist reputation by banning the practice of shark finning in
its waters and to forbid the shipment of shark fins.

So far the country has bobbed and weaved but failed to take decisive
steps to crack down on this despicable practice.

A lower-court judge once again has stifled efforts to bring some kind
of oversight to this practice. The judge, Rosa Cortes Morales, acted at
the request of Mariscos Wang S.A., Porta Portese S.A. and Transportes
el Pescador S.A. to annul an agreement that would make shark finners
dump their cargo at a public dock in Puntarenas.

For obvious reasons, these ravagers of the seas prefer to hide their
cargo by unloading at friendly private docks.

The court decision was reported by the Programa de Restauración
de las Tortugas Marinas, an environmental group that has been fighting
shark finning for years.

The agreement was between the Instituto Costarricense de Pesca y
Acuacultura and the Ministerio de Obras Pública y Transportes.
The effect of the agreement was to require shark fishermen to obey the
law.

Judge Cortez took the unusual step of throwing out the agreement
without hearing from the other side because the shark finners and their
wholesalers claimed irreparable damage, according to the decision. They
would be damaged by abiding by the law.

There is more to come in this legal process, but Round One goes to the
shark finners.

They say that people cannot comprehend large numbers. To say that
200,000 persons died in the Haitian earthquake does not have the
emotional impact of seeing the damaged body of a single Haitian baby.

That may be true with shark finning. In 2006 the first quantitative
study of sharks harvested for their fins estimates that as many as
73 million sharks are killed each year worldwide. This number is three
times higher than was reported originally by the United Nations, said
the study.

Programa de Restauración de
Tortugas Marinas photo

Shark fins drying on a Puntarenas rooftop

That number is hard to fathom. But the adjacent photo shows a number of
shark fins, and each represents an animal dumped back in the ocean to
die. The photo came from the Programa de Restauración de
Tortugas Marinas, which reported that the photo shows a Puntarenas
rooftop being used to dry shark fins. The photographer had to flee.

From time to time government officials take note of shark finning. When
the film "Sharkwater" played in San José, then-legislator Ofelia
Taitelbaum, a former biology professor, said she would introduce a
bill to ban the practice. Nothing ever came of it.

Ms. Taitelbaum is now the defensora de los habitantes and would seem to
be in a position to follow through if she were not just posturing in
2007.

The general belief is that Costa Rican officials have not cracked down
on shark finning because Asian governments that provide aid to the
country have an interest in the practice continuing. Shark fins are
used in Asia cooking, although nutritionally they are less adequate
than many other meals. Perhaps the new stadium, a gift from China,
should be called the Arena of Dead
Sharks.

— Feb. 7, 2011

An A.M. Costa Rica editorial
At some point there must be a reason to discard pacifism

By Jay Brodelleditor of A.M. Costa Rica

Costa Rica does not seem to be having much success finding
international support to counter Nicaragua's invasion of a small patch
of national soil.

A Costa Rican letter writer Monday said this:

"I am certain that if you asked civilized, average Costa Ricans and
Nicaraguans if they believe that that patch of God-forsaken land is
worth the life of one single person on either side, they would respond
with a resounding NO! Costa Ricans don’t go to war at the drop of a
hat, not because we are 'cowards with no backbone,' but because we are
smart and educated."

Much has been made of this country's tradition of existing without an
army. Also highly valued is the tradition of neutrality.

Both are pragmatic positions what have morphed into myth.
José Figueres Ferrer abolished the army after he won the
country's civil war. He had good, pragmatic reasons. The army in many
countries is the likely source of rebellion. Later in life he said that
his decision had a sound philosophical basis, too.

Costa Rican school children are encouraged to believe that Costa Rica
is special because it does not have an army. The money they would have
spent on military has been spent on education, social services and
infrastructure, so the theory goes.

Clearly it has not been spent on roads and bridges.

President Luis Alberto Monge
declared the country to be neutral when it appeared that Costa Rica
would be swept into the Nicaraguan civil war. There was a recent
ceremony praising that pragmatic decision.

Can Costa Rica be neutral in all things? We know it is neutral with
regard to the Taliban suppression of women in Afghanistan. Other
nations and the United Nations have taken up that fight.

But where does Costa Rica draw the line? Perhaps the letter writer is
correct and that a small chunk of national territory is not worth
fighting for. After all, the Isla Calero appears to be mostly a
home for large mosquitoes.

But if Nicaraguan forces move down the Río Colorado deep into
Costa Rica, is that worth fighting for? How about Guanacaste? If
Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega wants that land back after 186 years, is that
worth fighting for?

President Laura Chinchilla seems to think that there should be a line
drawn. She has beefed up the northern border with heavily armed police.

Myths of neutrality and the effectiveness of international law often
clash with realities. Clearly no one can be neutral in the face of Nazi
aggression and concentration camps. Nor can one be neutral when
one country calls for the elimination of another country.

At least the citizens cannot remain neutral and claim any pretensions
to moral superiority.